Top Ten Tuesday: Animated Series Based on a Movie

Usually we see animated cartoons as a separate entity from live-action movies, or else they spawn a major movie event or franchise. This would be the case with G.I. JOE, which opens this Friday, August 7 in theaters nationwide. However, there are a select number of memorable animated television series that were based on a live-action movie. Having broke the mold in that sense, we decided to come up with our list of the Top Ten Animated Series Based on a Movie. Each of these animated series garnered various levels of success and popularity from various eras on TV nostalgia.

10. Tales From the Cryptkeeper (1993)

This early 90’s cartoon of course was based on the HBO Series and two Movies (Demon Night and Bordello of Blood). Of course the content was completely watered down, taking out the violence and other questionable material.Instead the episodes were about machines that turned people into wax, a nerd turning himself into a monster to get back at the bullies who have been picking on him, and a Sleeping Beauty who turns out to be a blood sucking vampire. It definitely is more reminiscent of Scooby Doo than the movies in the non-violence and problem solving, but still entertaining. They did keep the original voice of the Cryptkeeper John Kassir. 39 episodes in all, the cartoon aired for 2 seasons, was canceled, and then picked up again for one more season in 1997. — Melissa

9. Police Academy: The Animated Series (1988)

Tackleberry, Mahoney and House are still at their old shenanigans in the animated world of Police Academy. The gang is out to fight crime, run the academy, and make life positively miserable for Captain Harris and his assistant Proctor. Mahoney just can’t leave Harris and Proctor alone! Some of the new characters included a recurring crime boss named Kingpin and a group of talking dogs called the Canine Corps. Samson was the notable bulldog canine leader. I personally would love a team of talking dogs to have my back! Even though the show was popular, the cartoon only lasted 64 episodes over two seasons in 1988. None of the original characters from the 7 movies did voice work on the cartoon, but it was still entertaining. — Melissa

8. Droids: The Adventures of R2D2 and C3PO (1985)

While THE CLONE WARS is pulling in the ratings for The Cartoon Network, you have to go back 24 years to find the first, animated spin-off of the STAR WARS universe.   DROIDS was an animated series that followed the adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO (voiced by Anthony Daniels, as if that weren’t a surprise) before they ever came across a whiny farm boy or the creepy old guy from the desert.   Set between REVENGE OF THE SITH and A NEW HOPE, the series had the droids going from master to master, adventure to adventure, all the while creating hi-jinx and coming face to face with some of the STAR WARS universe’s more famous characters.   Boba Fett and IG-88 made appearances, and the Empire played a large part in each episode.   The opening theme song was “Trouble Again” performed by Stewart Copeland of The Police.   While the series, which only ran for one season and 13 episodes, was initially believed to be part of STAR WARS canon, much of the series is disconnected from the events that take place in REVENGE OF THE SITH.   I’m not going to expose myself as the uber-geek that I am and point out some of these dissimilarities, but, if you know your STAR WARS, you have a pretty good idea what doesn’t mesh.   George Lucas, always looking for that next dollar, also pimped the DROIDS series out to a toy line and comic series.   The series also had a sequel, a TV special called THE GREAT HEEP. — Kirk

7. RoboCop: The Series (1994)

Based on the events of the movie, ROBOCOP: THE ANIMATED SERIES was produced in the late 1980’s by Marvel Productions. The cartoon contained the same characters, Alex Murphy and Officer Anne Lewis, was set in Detroit City and still had RoboCop battling OCP, the “Old Man,” and the Enforcement Droid Series 209. Although a little preachy at times with its lessons about racism and prejudice, it had some serious stuff going on. Most notably, “The Man in the Iron Suit” which sends RoboCop against the Detroit Police Force’s Lieutenant Hedgecock, who hates RoboCop and anything robotic. Hedgecock is even willing to go into an experimental suit built by “the Old Man” to embarrass RoboCop with a challenge. Another episode, “The Brotherhood” deals with a Ku-Klux-Klan storyline and has RoboCop up against a gang called the Brotherhood whose ultimate goal is to take down all robots. Ultimately, the show was far superior to its counterpart, the cartoon ROBOCOP: ALPHA COMMANDO from the late 1990’s. The opening even had a shortened version of Murphy being killed by the bad guy, Clarence Boddicker, and even hints at RoboCop trying to reclaim some of his humanity. With kids would be its primary audience, the producers used lasers instead of bullets and guns. ROBOCOP: THE ANIMATED SERIES definitely had more of a sci-fi vibe to it than the movie. You can tell this cartoon had a high budget and some cool changes were made to the main character – a red light that went back and forth along his visor. ROBOCOP: THE ANIMATED SERIES 12 episodes were released in February of 2008 by Jetix Films UK in a 3-disc box set, but isn’t available here in the U.S. — Michelle

6. Star Trek: The Animated Adventures (1973)

Star Trek: The Animated Series boldly went where no other cartoon went before with 22 episodes. Running from 1973-1974, ST: TAS picked up from where the original Gene Roddenberry show left off and was set in the known Trek worlds with the same crew and characters. Trekkers demand for more of the Enterprise’s adventures is what brought about ST: TAS. My favorite episode is “Yesteryear” where Spock travels thru time to Vulcan when he was a boy. This was the first time we met Spock’s pet sehlat, I-Chaya, first mentioned in the TREK episode “Journey to Babel.” It also delves into Spock’s tortured childhood and his relationship with his mother, Amanda. Except for Walter Koenig, the original actors provided voice work for their characters. After initially leaving out Uhura and Sulu from the show, Leonard Nimoy refused to work unless everyone did their own voice-overs, so eventually NBC included their characters. Koenig’s Chekov couldn’t be added because of budget overruns, but he did write one of the episodes, “The Infinite Vulcan.” Believe it or not, there were early issues with “Trek Canon” as to what would be added or deleted from novels, comics, and the like stemming from ST: TAS. Roddenberry never took “the cartoon” seriously and any mention of it had to be omitted from future ST movies and tv shows. However, the series has since been made part of official Star Trek timeline and ST: TAS was the first Star Trek series to win an Emmy Award. Fans of the animated series can buy the complete series on Amazon. — Michelle

5. Clerks: Uncensored (2000)

The short lived series (6 Episodes) based on the classic Kevin Smith film ‘Clerks’ has to be the most underrated show on this list. It was way ahead of its time and ended entirely too soon. My only hope is that maybe one day K. Smith will find it in his heart to bring us new episodes via the web or some other form to keep living the Clerks life even if Jay and Silent Bob are still selling fireworks instead of drugs! — Scott

4. Back to the Future: The Animated Series (1991)

Following the success of the BACK TO THE FUTURE III in 1990, it was time to take the adventures of Marty McFly and Doc Brown to the world of Saturday morning cartoons.   BACK TO THE FUTURE: THE ANIMATED SERIES ran for two seasons between 1991 and 1992.   Accumulating a total of 26 episodes, it featured Doc Brown and his family and Marty jumping back and forth in time going on weekly adventures.   While not nearly as entertaining as the Zemeckis movies, the animated series was fun.   The center of attention was really on Doc Brown’s kids, Jules and Verne, and Marty was much more of a comic relief character than the lead.   However, the show brought in just enough tie-ins with the films and sent the characters on strange enough adventures to keep the enjoyment level pretty high.   Each episode opened and closed with a live action segment featuring Christopher Lloyd reprising his Doc Brown role.   Bill Nye would even perform science experiments in certain, closing segments.   This would lead to the creation of his own series, BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY, from 1993 to 1997.   The show is currently not available on DVD, nor do any stations run repeats of the show. — Kirk

3. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)

In all honesty, when I first watched this series I wasn’t all that impressed. In the beginning I thought the animation style was kind of lame and that the show was focused more on the very young audience than on the more appropriate fan base. However, as I began to go back and watch pieces of the show again it started to grow on me. Despite the abundant overuse of attempted comic relief from the droids, the show is actually a pretty cool accomplishment for an animated television series. The action is darn good throughout most of the series and really, why I doubted I cannot say, but come on… there are a lot of cool light saber fights in this show. Sure, it would have been better to see them live-action, but this was better than nothing. With Lucas’ epic film franchise at a close (as far as we know), it sort of made sense that he venture into the realm of CGI, giving him more creative control of his galaxy far, far away. — Travis

2. Beetlejuice (1989)

The animated BEETLEJUICE series was always lots of fun. Sure, the animation was often a bit cheesy, but it still maintained enough of it’s Tim Burton flair to keep a similar style to the film. The jokes and humor in the series was similar to the movie, but toned down to a kid-friendly level. Beetlejuice was voiced by Stephen Ouimette and Lydia was voiced by Alyson Court. While Beetlejuice was a devious, disgusting and perverted “ghost with the most” in the movie, in the animated series he was more like Lizzie’s DROP DEAD FRED. The series had tons of energy and the bizarre Netherworld landscapes and creepy cool characters were a blast. Two of my favorite characters aside from Beetlejuice himself were Jacques (the French skeleton) and the cowboy hat wearing Monster Across the Street, who wasn’t always the friendliest with Beetlejuice. The series was certainly weird, but that was part of the fun. Besides, it wasn’t any weirder than some of the kid’s shows they make today — Travis

1. The Real Ghostbusters (1986)

With the GHOSTBUSTERS video game coming out and news of a third feature film being set in motion, I’m actually surprised no one has started airing THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS animated series.   This show, in all of its cheesy, ’80s glory, was a whole lot of fun.   Running five seasons and capping in at 147 episodes, it took its name, because Filmation was creating their own animated series called GHOSTBUSTERS, an animated spin-off of their 1970s, live-action series THE GHOST BUSTERS.   THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS had so many tie-ins from the films.   The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man made numerous appearances.   Even Walter Peck popped up for an episode or two.   Slimer became part of the team, and served as sort of a mascot.   Kids all over the country loved the litte, green ghost so much, that he would eventually become the focal point for the series.

In 1988, the show changed its name to SLIMER! AND THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS, and went from 30 minutes to an hour long.   Interesting note, Ernie Hudson was the only person from the original film to audition for the cartoon.   He didn’t get the part, and Winston Zeddemore was, instead, voiced by Arsenio Hall.   Also, Lorenzo Music was the voice of Peter Venkman for the first two seasons.   There are rumors that Bill Murray didn’t like Music’s voice, because the actor thought he sounded too much like Garfield the Cat.   Music did provide the voice for Garfield.   At the beginning of season three, Venkman was voiced by Dave Coulier.   Ironically, Murray would go on to voice Garfield the Cat in the feature film.

THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS: THE COMPLETE COLLECTION is set for release on September 9th.   It features all 147 episodes plus 12 hours of bonus features all packaged in a deluxe firehouse collector’s box. — Kirk